100, 75, 50 Years Ago

NEW YORK — Mrs. Pankhurst, the suffragette leader, and a convict, whose license under the “Cat and Mouse Act” expired on July 31, left London on Friday night [Aug. 15], says The Observer, leaving Waterloo Station by the 9.45 boat train for Southampton, whence she crossed to Havre, France. Mrs. Pankhurst will undoubtedly visit her daughter, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, in Paris, and will probably take a long “rest cure” on the Continent, and possibly in America. Her departure and the fact that her journey was not apparently surrounded with any secrecy lends support to a recent statement that instructions had been issued to the police that, should she make any endeavor to leave the country, no obstruction was to be placed in her way.

1938 Lepers Seized by Officers

TOKIO — Osaka police are holding in a special prison forty-three Corean lepers, who, until their capture, committed wholesale banditry by threatening victims with contact with their own leprous flesh to give them the disease unless loot was turned over to them. The capture, and the subsequent trials in which the forty-three were convicted, had been kept secret until today [Aug. 16] for fear of public alarm of a leprosy plague, according to an Osaka dispatch of the official Domei news agency. Eight others are being sought. Those already held were captured in a raid on Osaka’s “Leper Avenue” when police wore rubber gloves and ragged uniforms drenched with germicides to ward off germs of the dread disease. The gang’s method, according to the report, was to enter homes and stores, even to waylay pedestrians on the streets, and make its threats to the victims. The leader, named Teshindai, was described as only slightly diseased. All are receiving treatment. The prisoners, the self-styled “leper gang,” are accused of crimes from robbery to murder.

1963 Rayon Making Comeback

NEW YORK — Rayon, written off a long time ago as an out-of-date textile yarn that could not compete against the newer synthetics, is staging a comeback. The material is gaining new markets and making healthy profits for producers of the yarn and fabric. The improvement can be attributed to an aggressive group of companies in the field that was unwilling to give up such activities. Instead, they plunged considerable sums of money into research and development — and came up with a success. Many years ago, the scoffers were convinced that nylon tire cord would soon take over the market on the basis of its low price and high strength. Today, through product development, which has strengthened rayon tire cord and cut the price, rayon still accounts for 99 percent of the original equipment tires. The same proportion will apply to all 1964 cars. Contracts for the 1965 models are to be signed next March. Raw materials for rayon come from Rayonier, a pulp producer specializing in high-quality dissolving cellulose.

A version of this article appears in print on August 17, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune. Today's Paper|Subscribe